More Links

Roughnecks Silence Stealth at Home

from Press Release

Shawn Evans has 12 points (4+8), including his
600th career point, to help the Calgary Roughnecks (4-3)
defeat the Vancouver Stealth (3-7) with a 20-9 home win in
front of 11,162 fans at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday.
Several scoring marks were reached with the decisive victory,
including Calgary’s first 20-goal performance at home since
March 31, 2007.

“Our guys competed at a great level, at a level we need to
compete at to be successful,” said Roughnecks head coach Curt
Malawsky after the game. “We got the shots to where we wanted
to on the floor, we limited their transition men for the most part,
and we were offensively sound for the most part.”

Ask any coach what the key to success is, and the word
“discipline” will come up often. Calgary surrendered
just 2 minutes of power play time in the game. But tempers flared
on the Stealth bench as the clock winded down in the fourth
quarter.

“(My team) handled it exactly as I told them to handle
it,” said Malawsky about Vancouver’s
outburst as the game neared the final seconds.
“We’re up by 11 goals, so we’ll decide when
it’s time to fight.”

At the 8:28 mark of the final frame, Ilija Gajic and Greg
Hartnett dropped the gloves. With the fight, Gajic also received a
game misconduct and a 2 minute minor for instigating. This
wouldn’t be the final tilt of the night though; just 5
minutes later, Matt Beers and Travis Cornwall also picked up
fighting majors.

“That’s the heart of a champion right there,”
added Malawsky, on Harnett’s ability to protect his team in
the fourth quarter. “He exemplifies what we believe
in… guys who do little things like that in the trenches go a
long way in this league, and this organization.”

Calgary had 3 separate 5-goal runs, one of them coming in the
4th quarter to seal the offensively powerful victory for the
Roughnecks.

Two more records were set with the victory. One of which, being
a new scoring landmark for Shawn Evans as he picked up his 600th
career point. Evans entered the game 10 points off the mark, but
capped off number 600 at the halfway mark of the final frame.

“It was a team win,” said a slightly modest Evans on
the accomplishment. “It took everybody to play together as a
team. We didn’t make too many mistakes, and it’s good
to see to carry over into next game.”

The Necks entered the second half up 8-5 on the Stealth. Just 2
minutes into the third quarter, the Roughnecks did something the
NLL hadn’t seen since 2010; they scored three goals in the
span of just 27 seconds. Not just that, but the latter 2 goals of
that run came just 5 seconds apart, falling just short of a new
franchise record (set in 2012 at 4 seconds).

“It’s just one of those things, where we had a
couple of breaks and ended up putting the ball in the net,”
continued Evans, who also received the night’s first star.
“It’s always huge coming out after the first half and
burying a couple. It was a good momentum swing for us, and we
carried it on for the rest of the game.”

Vancouver entered Calgary coming off an offensive onslaught of
their own the night prior, taking down Colorado 19-9. Tonight was
mirrored the complete opposite.

“We just didn’t come to play,” said Stealth
head coach Chris Hall. “We were okay early I thought. But as
the game progressed, we showed signs that we were just coming to
them. They got that 8-5 goal which put is down 3 at the half, which
was a huge deflator for our team.”

With the loss, Vancouver has lost 6 of their last 7 games.
They’ll have to wait 3 weeks until they hit the turf again in
Edmonton, giving the team plenty of time to iron out any big
issues.

“We’ve got to focus on putting together a
combination of players that can compete, and win, and stay in
lacrosse games,” continued Hall. “We were a house on
fire last night, and tonight we were the complete opposite.
You’ve got to find some consistency, and when you’re
down, you’ve got to find some way to keep yourself in then
game and compete.”

“We didn’t have the effort or the mental capacity to
come out and win two in a row in a double header.” said
Digby, who was awarded Rookie of the Month honors in January.
“We just need to keep battling and try to pull out some wins
as the season goes on.”

Roughnecks goaltenders Mike Poulin and Frankie Scigliano stopped
a combined 31 of 40 shots, while Tyler Richards and Matt Roik had a
combined total of 36 saves for the Stealth.

Three Stars of the Game as selected by the media:

1) Shawn Evans2) Dane Dobbie3) Geoff Snider

The Roughnecks are back in action next Saturday, when they
welcome the Rochester Knighthawks to the Scotiabank Saddledome
at 7:00 MST. The Stealth don’t see action
until March 8, when they head to Edmonton to take on the
Rush.